Firefighters conduct prescribed burn at Ogden Dunes

OGDEN DUNES, Ind. -- Firefighters with the Ogden Dunes Fire Department and the National Park Service were hard at work Friday conducting a prescribed burn.

Prescribed burns help get rid of brush, grass and leaves that could be fuel for a wildfire.

The Ogden Dunes Fire Department teams up with the National Park Service two times a year for these burns. Because most of the leaves have fallen to the ground, now is the best for a prescribed burn.

"We usually burn in the spring or fall whenever there's no leaves on the trees. So in the fall of course, we like to have no leaves on the trees as much as possible, everything on the ground. That makes that fuel available for us to burn," said Brandon Ramirez, Burn Boss with the National Park Service.

The interagency effort is geared towards helping the environment…

"A lot of it has to do with creating a habitat for the car blue butterfly, so we try to knock the understory down, a lot of oak regeneration, we try to kill that off and keep the Oak Savannah looking like it should," said Ramirez.

They're also eliminating the brush that could burn and spread to nearby homes.

"Deep-seeded heat is harder to get close to and put out, so we try to reduce that as much as we can," said Ramirez.

Ramirez said their goal Friday was safety.

"Main-end goal of today is firefighter and public safety. Nobody gets hurt and everybody walks away from this burn just fine," said Ramirez.